


They don't even have (hermit) crabs here

by gem_lighter



Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: (ive been wanting to use that tag for AGES), Gen, au aquatic, dubious magic laws that are brought up at the authors convinience, explanations for such are not required and not going to be utilized, i'll update tags as i go and as new hermits appear, slow burn enemies to coworkers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-06-27 20:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19797661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gem_lighter/pseuds/gem_lighter
Summary: au aquatica! basic shakedown is is that a bunch of the hermits(a nebulous amount of hermits indeed) are like merbeings nd shit. doc, cleo, iskall, wels, tango, nd false r humans. shenanigans afoot.my entire qualifications for writing this is that I have gone to a backstage seaworld tour for like a week and that's about it(allegedly multichaptered)





	1. Getting Hired(Or, the Art of Freaking Out Your Best Friend)

Cleo was no stranger to scams. She actually had run quite a few in her free time, so the warning signs were all solidly there. In spite of this, it was the beginning of summer, tail end of school year, when good decision making flew out the window. Of course she wanted something to do over the summer, so a job offer taped to her door offering a job at a sea life rescue center and aquarium, with extremely good pay, seemed almost too good to be true. She had texted Wels a picture of the flyer.

**ZombieElf** : I mean like it has 2 b a scam?

**ZombieElf** : look @ this. “20 an hour” for a part time job. Wtf

**KnightNight** : Oh it most certainly is a scam.

**ZombieElf** : or like

**ZombieElf** : a murder trap

**ZombieElf** : like if i apply to this 

**ZombieElf** : and show up

**ZombieElf** : i will get murdered

**KnightNight** : So, you’re going to apply, right?

**ZombieElf** : lol yeah

**ZombieElf** : if i don’t die im gonna b rich

**KnightNight** : Somehow, that does not seem to be an equivalent exchange.

**ZombieElf** : murdered or money? truly a shakesparan struggle

**KnightNight** : *Shakespearean

**ZombieElf** : lol

Of course, for non suspicious reasons, which Cleo found extremely suspicious, she landed the job after filling out a few forms and making a few calls. She had Wels drive her over to the aquarium. 

“Are you really sure about this?” Wels face was pulled into the most worried expression she had ever seen.

Cleo smiled, and waved her hand around. “If I disappear, you’ll know where to tell police.” Wels sputtered.

“That’s not very hope-inspiring!” He countered. Cleo swung herself out of his truck. 

“I’ll text you when I get inside!” She walked off towards the front of the building. Wels sighed, and went over to close the door. She never remembered to close it. He deliberated for a moment, and drove off.

Stepping into the wide room was a brain-jamming moment for Cleo. She blinked. The ceiling was colored glass, soft blues and greens filtering down and cooling the room. The walls were spiraled with colorful waves, highly stylized sea creatures swimming through, and jumping above the painted ocean. Mosaics tiled the floor, depicting various types of seashells, and having paths leading to different rooms. 

“Pretty, huh?” A voice cut through the awe, and Cleo jumped. She turned to see a girl in a wetsuit. She popped goggles off and stuck out her hand. 

“M’name’s False, but most people call me Falsey. I’m one of the sea lion trainers here!” She shook Cleo’s hand vigorously, almost as if she was planning to pull her arm off. 

“I’m Cleo. I snapped up the job posting and I’m supposed to meet a ‘Doc’ today? But I don’t really know my way around.” False’s eyes lit up and she grabbed Cleo’s hand. 

“Doc is the director of the rehab wing- his office is kind of in a weird spot, so it’s a good thing you didn’t have to wander around this place- I know I definitely got lost whenever I first got here-” She pulled Cleo through various rooms, each seemingly themed after different sea life, and filled enough of the conversation so that Cleo didn’t need to respond. 

A flurry of twists and turns through the seemingly endless building later, False had stopped in front of a door. Cleo blinked. 

“Thank you!” Cleo smiled. False nodded, hopped once, twice, three times and turned, running off down the hall, presumably to wherever she needed to be. She turned the doorknob, and into a cluttered office. 

It was almost comical how messy the office was. Boxes sitting on top of boxes, on top of filing cabinets, next to small desks with piles of papers. Cleo quickly scanned the room and almost burst out laughing upon realizing that the office was, in fact, wedged underneath a set of stairs. This tiny, terrible room was hard to reconcile with the fact that this was allegedly the office belonging to a director, someone really far up the chain of command last anyone checked. In the center of the room was a man who was somehow even more chaotic than the room itself. His short hair spiked out in all directions and he was, inexplicably, wearing a lab coat. Of course. Cleo balked.

“Are you Doc?” He looked up. And smiled. This was definitely a murder trap. 

He stood up and extended his hand, Cleo taking it, and then yelping when his hand seemingly popped off. Her eyes boggled and she put her hands up out of shock. He laughed widely and picked up his own hand. 

“Ha! Yes, I am. Don’t worry too much about my hand, it’s a prosthetic.” Cleo nodded dumbly, slightly mad at herself for getting so spooked. 

“Right, so, I’m supposed to be working here.” Cleo quickly recovered and tilted her head. 

“Oh, you’re Cleo! Alright. Let me take you to where you’re going to be working. It’s a little out of the way and not everyone has access to it. Lucky you, right?” He looped around the desk and- Jesus Christ he was so damn tall- started leading the way. Cleo’s day has been pretty full of following people.

She fished her phone out from her pocket.

**ZombieElf** : this is lookin more like murder lol

**ZombieElf** : i will keep u updated

**ZombieElf** : if i dont die

After shooting off that quick series of texts she ran to catch up with Doc, who was striding around corners too quickly for her comfort. Turn after turn, Cleo’s understanding of what normal building layouts completely dissipated. Eventually, they arrived to a dark lit hallway (a bad sign) with a single door (a worse sign) and seemingly no one else around (an awful, awful sign). Cleo glanced backwards, gauging how much of a lead she could get. The door opened. Doc had to push himself against the heavy door to get it to fully swing open. Accepting her fate, she walked through the door. 

Several large tanks loomed on either side of her, but curiously, didn’t have any fish in it. The door yawned close. She quietly shuffled forward, trying to angle her head to see if anything was in the cool blue of the tank. Doc walked up next to her.

He glanced at the tank for a moment, and huffed. “I’m guessing they’re waiting to scare you.” His eyes narrowed. “That’s what I get for telling them you were coming.” Cleo blinked.

“... Scare me?”

“They’ve got an awful sense of humor.” Cleo quietly tried to parse out the weird phrasing Doc was using when a tail came into view. 

It twisted out of sight momentarily before a full body emer- that’s a person. That is, certifiably, a person. With a mermaid-like tail. 

Okay.

“Am I getting pranked?” Doc laughed at that. Cleo prayed that was confirmation.

“This is about as real as it gets. It’s not a prank.” Oh.

“Nice!” Cleo responded, before reuniting with the ground and escaping consciousness.


	2. Into the Den of the Sea(And, Encountering Someone New)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "5 missed calls from Wels."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahahahaha (updates at 2am my time and then disappears into the void)

Cleo returned to the land of the not-passed-out unceremoniously about 20 minutes later. She awoke peacefully to a large splash of water soaking her like a towel in a pool, and Doc freaking out.

Very, very calm situation, all things considered. 

She blinked, wiped the water out of her eyes, and sat up. She pulled her phone out. 

5 missed calls from Wels.  
20 unread texts, also from Wels.  
1 unread email from Netflix. Probably not top priority.

She skimmed and silently thanked the fact that he hadn’t called the cops yet before quickly tapping out a response.

**ZombieElf** : nvm  
**KnightNight** : NEVERMIND?  
**KnightNight** : Sorry for yelling, but my fair lady, pray tell, what the heck!  
**KnightNight** : You cannot expect me to not be concerned.  
**ZombieElf** : ily  
**ZombieElf** : thnx for worrying  
**KnightNight** : :(  
**ZombieElf** : i’ll Xplain when i finish up here  
**KnightNight** : I cannot say I am particularly excited with how vague you are.

She looked up to see a very concerned Doc looking at her.

“You’re not telling anyone about what you… saw, right?” The hesitation in his voice was evident as he looked back up at the tank Cleo was resting her back to.

“I’m just letting a friend know that this wasn’t a huge planned thing to murder me dude. Chill.” Cleo shrugged and pushed herself to her feet. “So am I going to like, get an explanation for this whole thing now that I’m not passed out?” Doc laughed.

“Well, I’m not really sure I can explain, even I tried. The long and short of it is that this was an accident.”

“You accidentally dedicated a secret wing to rehabilitating mermaids.”

“It sounds lame when you phrase it like that.”

“You never said I was wrong!” Doc’s face scrunched, and he puffed out his cheeks in an annoyed moment, before remembering that it looked absolutely ridiculous, and set his face into a more regular annoyed.

“Anyways, we still have one more thing to do before I go over everything else you’re going to be doing working here.”

He walked over to a coat rack and grabbed a giant, fluffy jacket, with a cartoon-y cat face stitched on the hood. It looked like it was something a child had forgotten forever ago and never escaped lost-and-found. He threw it at Cleo, and she wrestled with it momentarily before pulling it over. It (embarrassingly) fit her quite easily, and she quickly found the pockets and slipped her hands in. For about the twentieth time in the day, she followed someone, namely, Doc, around in the building.

The temperatures quietly sloped off until frost accumulated on the edges of surfaces and Cleo’s breath spun like cotton in the air. Cleo noticed that the hallway ended with a singular tank, and turned quizzically to Doc. 

“Did you design the layout of this place?”

“Yeah. You like it?”

“I was just wondering since this whole setup is so... extremely dramatic.” Doc’s face rolled through several emotions and he picked up his walking speed.

“Well, here’s Stress.” Doc gestured towards the tank at the end of the hall, glass entirely frosted over.

“Is that a name or an indication of whatever is about to happen?” 

“Just walk up to the tank.” 

Cleo, of course, put her hand on the glass. It was freezing, and she pulled away. She noticed a clawed hand that had pressed up to where hers had just been, seemingly by the fact that her hand was comparatively warm. The tank sloshed as the surface layer of ice broke, and Cleo tilted her head up. 

Out of the tank rose a shark of a girl, with pale skin barely undertoned by pink, hair seemingly defying conventions and curling as it flipped out of the water. Her gracefully rise up out of the water was cut short by her hands violently grabbing at the edge of the tank, her upper half leaning over far too close to Cleo’s face. She smiled, sharp teeth zippering her face. Her glassy eyes were dark, with glowing blue-white easily showing she was staring directly at Cleo. From how close she was, Cleo could see the stark white dots freckling her face. She pulled herself half-back into the tank, beckoning Cleo even closer.

Stress briefly turned to Doc, and spoke something that completely missed Cleo’s ears. Stress, more calmly now, reached down, gently catching Cleo’s face. Her smile seemed more calmed, practiced almost, as she began speaking again, words swimming past Cleo’s comprehension. Cleo heard a hum in the background of her skull, rattling up until a pop sounded out. She blinked.

“And that should do the trick!” Stress spoke, triumphantly.

Wait, what. 

“Wait, what?” Cleo said.

“Didn’t Doc tell you? I’m a sea witch!”

“Nah, he was just a vague shit and walked me into this freezer with no elaboration.”

“Okay! Thank you Stress. Me and Cleo need to go finish discussing her workload in my office.” Doc cut in, clearly annoyed. Stress laughed.

“You’re such a meanie, Doc. Treat Cleo nice or I may have to do more magic on you.” Stress emphasized this by wiggling her fingers and sticking her tongue out, before diving back into her tank.

After maneuvering out of the wing, and into Doc’s office once again, he laid out what Cleo was going to do in the rehabilitation wing. 

Which was… everything, basically. It probably would make a shorter list to say everything she _wasn't_ doing. 

Cleo sighed internally. This was going to be a long ass summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl I feel kind of bad writing so much friction between cleo and doc cuz (cries) I don't like when the girls are fightinggggggg but the slow burn enemies to coworkers tag has to mean something otherwise this fic is a sham
> 
> anyways I feel like this update is smaller (table flips) I've got a chunkier update outline planned for ch3 so hopefully that works out


	3. A New Arrival (and a very restless slug)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> poor wels constantly getting outsmarted by his bestie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: sorry the last chapter was short i'll probably make the next one longer  
> also me: makes another short chapter

Cleo stepped out of the building and called Wels. It wasn’t even a full ring before he picked up.

“Hey knighty, come get ya girl.” 

“You’re okay!”

“You were still worried?” Wels squeaked. 

“Maybe?” Cleo laughed. “I’ll be there in like 5 minutes, Cleo.”

“Love ya Wels!” Cleo cooed as she hung up. 

Sure enough, within 5 minutes, Cleo was sitting in the cushioned paradise of Wels’ truck. Cleo leaned back and hummed contentedly.

“Can we talk about what the heck went on while you were at the aquarium?” “Aquarium and rehabilitation center for sea life.”

“Do I seriously have to use the full description every time?”   


“Find out after you drive us to get some fro-yo!” Wels giggled and shook his head. 

Cleo, of course, did not explain anything that occurred at the aquarium. To do so would be admitting to madness. She managed to spin the conversation into her musings on frozen yogurt, and how it makes a person reconsider their priorities when the looming threat of being priced by weight in direct conflict with the desire to try and escape the limits of the cup. By the end of it, Wels was so distracted by the logistics of melon balls, he had completely lost his goal. 

Another drive later, Cleo was outside of her house. She gave Wels a wide-toothed smile as she left the car.

“Hey, by the way, can you drive me to work tomorrow? Thank you, bye!” Wels sputtered as she closed the door, no doubt realizing that he had forgotten to ask for an explanation. 

Cleo giggled as she stepped up to her front door, and punched the code in. She haphazardly threw up a peace sign and heard Wels drive off. After going through the basic house routine, she crashed into her bed and passed out. Her dreams were filled with fish, and had many senseless hallways leading to tanks with sea life people she couldn't possibly know.

-

Cleo fully expected the second day of her job to be some level of normal, but alas, the universe reminded her that accepting the strangeness of her situation doesn’t make it any less stupid. 

So of course she walks in on Doc wrestling an octopus man. There had to be some Spiderman reference in the scenario, but Cleo wasn't nearly clever enough to make it.

“Geez, ever heard of putting a sock on the doorknob?” Cleo says as she notices the blood on the floor. She glanced away to check to see if there was a mop, because frankly, the amount of blood on the floor was more than considered reasonable. 

“Could you… grab the needle… and sedate him for me?” Doc growled through his teeth. 

Cleo looked around the room, grabbed the needle, and unceremoniously jammed it into one of the octopus’ tentacles. He squirmed for a few more moments before passing out. Doc leaned back and groaned. 

“So what was that all about?” Cleo asked as Doc shakily stood up.

“His name is Mumbo, we found him today. He got pulled up with a bunch of cod, and I was in the process of getting him to a tank, but he tried to escape.” 

“Yeah, octopi tend to do that. Hey, how much of the blood on the floor is yours?”

“Well, unless I spontaneously got blue blood, I wouldn’t say much.” Cleo snorted, and grabbed a mop to start cleaning the floor. 

“Right, well, you should probably lock him up before he wakes up and tries more shenanigans.” Doc briefly smiled, and threw Mumbo over his shoulder, walking off deeper into the wing. 

Swish, swish, swish. 

Cleo looked up. Someone was moving around, quite a bit, in their tank. Swish.

Cleo stepped around the corner. Swish. She walked, rationalizing that it would be an opportunity to meet some of the others in the wing, since she had only really met Stress. Swish, swish.

She stopped. 

“Hello?” The swish of the water stopped. A head popped over the tank. 

“Well howdy there miss! What brings you to this corner of our humble little wing?” He had an accent that comfortably sat in the south, politeness rounding off the edges. He was spread-eagled across the color wheel in terms of patterns, a sea slug, probably, and had a crooked smile. 

“Oh, I’m Cleo. I heard you pushing water off the top of your tank.”

“And I’m Joe! The reason I was movin’ around so much was because I was double checking to see if I had anything to write with.”

“Write with?”

“Yes! I am a poet.” Cleo made a small noise of confusion and surprise, and she briefly considered asking Joe if he wrote in English, or something else entirely. 

“Hold on, let me see if I can find anything? I’ll be back in a minute.” Cleo quickly ran off back the way she came, and picked Doc’s jacket off the coat rack. She dug through the pockets, and briefly considered taking the loose change. Nothing else useful in his pockets, however. 

She walked back, shoulders slumped down. “I couldn’t find anything for you to write with.” Joe frowned, tilted his head from side to side, and smiled. 

“Don’t sweat it! It is an odd request coming from a slug such as myself.” 

“You said you were a poet, right? Why don’t you just tell me your poetry out loud.” Joe smiled. 

“That’s a mighty fine idea, miss Cleo.” Joe motioned for Cleo to sit, and cleared his throat. Cleo put her head in her hands and stared intently as Joe began to speak. 

From the end of the hall, Doc noticed Cleo wasn’t working. He was about to call out to her when he saw that Joe was talking to her. He smiled, and turned back to finish up the rest of the work that Cleo should really have been doing. He could always talk to her about it later. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to redraft the mumbo and doc wrestling thing like 5 times bc attempting to describe it was an Experience


End file.
